Rime Group

(550 words)

The English-language term “rhyme group” (also spelled “rime group”) is commonly seen as a translation of three distinct terms in traditional Chinese phonology: yùn 韻, yùnbù 韻部, and shè 攝.

The first term, yùn, is polysemous. It refers (a) to a part of a Chinese syllable; (b) to a set of characters that have been classified together within a rhyme book because their pronunciations are considered to rhyme. When referring to part of a syllable, yùn is always rendered in English as 'rhyme' (or 'rime'), never as 'rhyme group'. When referring to a set of characters, yùn is sometimes rendered in …